Skating at Bryant Park

This is another blog entry with a lot of photos and a short video

down at the bottom of the page.

Not only did Gee and Kenzie get to skate at Rockefeller Center but we also scheduled an early morning skating session at Bryant Park.  Of course, Lukey was supposed to skate with them on both days but he was on crutches with a broken foot so he stuck with me during the skating sessions.  

This session at Bryant Park wasn't as early as the session we had previously at Rockefeller Center but it was their earliest session of the day for Bryant Park.  We figured that the crowd would be thinner earlier in the morning plus the ice would be best first thing in the morning.  The temperatures reached into the 40s during the day while we were there which isn't so great for ice, however, the ice would have a chance to freeze well through the night when nobody was skating on it and the temperatures were down around freezing again.  By the end of the day, both rinks had been soft with puddles so we wanted to get the best ice possible.  The best ice is first thing in the morning after a night of the coldest temperatures of the day allowing the ice to set up nicely again.  

At Bryant Park, Kenzie and Gee were among the first on the ice this day...

Although Kenzie and Gee were at the front of the line allowing them to get on the ice first (above), the line extended well past the rink and toward Sixth Avenue...

I had a bit of an advantage when shooting photos and video at Rockefeller Center.  At that rink, I was well above the rink at street level so I was shooting downward.  At this angle, I didn't really have any other skaters in my way when I was trying to capture Kenzie and Gee.  At Bryant Park I wasn't so lucky!

At Bryant Park, I was at the same level as the rink so every skater could easily get in my way blocking my view of Kenzie and Gee.  This caused my autofocus to focus on all the people between me and the girls.  The autofocus would bounce from skater to skater going from near to mid-range and then back to near.  I eventually switched to manual focus and kept focusing on the girls by hand.  This worked far better but was a challenge while wearing gloves in the cold!

Then, my other challenge was all the people who thought they were skating.  They hugged the boards pulling themselves, inch by inch, along the boards while taking baby steps as though they had no skates.  These people would be in groups of six to twelve coming within mere inches of my camera while blocking everyone's view of the rink.  

Do these people really think this is the way to learn to skate?  Hint....  this is not the way to learn to skate nor is it the way to skate on one of the most well-known rinks in the world.  When I explained this to Sheila, she tried to keep a positive thought while saying, "at least they could say they skated at Bryant Park".  I'm standing firm in my contention that they did not skate at Bryant Park.

Kenzie and Gee getting a selfie before leaving Bryant Park...

It was obvious that Kenzie and Gee enjoyed themselves!    

After this skating session we headed over to Ellen's Stardust Diner for breakfast but the line was already snaking down the length of the block outside the diner!  Instead, we went to Junior's Diner for breakfast and had to wait only less than 10 minutes.  We would visit Ellen's Stardust Diner on the following morning by arriving shortly after they opened.

Ellen's Stardust Diner is on Broadway and quite a unique diner.  I'll share more about breakfast at Ellen's in another blog entry.  

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On a more technical note, I had screwed up at both rinks while shooting video.  The problems were different each day but video clips from both days were major disappointments for me when I reviewed the clips at home on my desktop computer.  

First, I had forgotten about the spotlights shining on the ice that slowly changed colors.  This changing color caused major problems with my camera because I wasn't thinking and chose to use "Auto White Balance".  The camera kept trying to correct the white balance as the spotlights changed color.  That is not what I wanted to happen.  I wanted to see those colored spotlights as they were in person.  Worse yet, the camera couldn't accurately correct for these drastic color changes either which caused some funky skewed coloring in the videos.  If I had simply set a custom white balance and left it that way for the skating session, the color would have been perfect.

At Bryant Park, I later found that I had another problem besides the white balance issue but I didn't see the problem until I was back home on my desktop computer.  I forgot that the girls were skating slightly later in the morning which meant the light was brighter.  Rockefeller Center is darker than Bryant Park anyway due to all the tall buildings blocking light at Rockefeller Center.  I forgot to adjust the camera settings to account for more light so all of my video clips are overexposed from this morning at Bryant Park.  It is very noticeable with the bright light reflecting off the ice.  

Those are two boneheaded mistakes that should not have happened.  I suppose this is what happens when you are exhausted (starting our trip exhausted due to the drive), very cold, and wearing gloves while attempting to manipulate tiny buttons on the camera.

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Here is the video of skating at Bryant Park...